CANTON, Ohio – A judge on Friday declined to address an accusation that prosecutors are trying to mislead the public in the case of a former police officer accused in the death of his pregnant girlfriend.
Defense attorneys say Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, never told his high school classmate he killed Jessie Davis, 26, who was nearly full-term when she killed in her northeast Ohio home in June.
The lawyers accuse prosecutors of trying to influence potential jurors and the community with wrong information.
During a 30-minute hearing, Stark County Common Pleas Judge Charles E. Brown Jr. overruled a defense motion that accused prosecutors of withholding evidence in the case.
Cutts, who resigned as a Canton patrolman after his arrest, is charged with three counts of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, gross abuse of a corpse and endangering children.
Jury selection in his trial is set to begin Jan. 23. If convicted, Cutts faces a possible death sentence.
In court papers, Stark County prosecutors have said Cutts admitted to high school classmate Myisha Ferrell that he killed Davis and her unborn daughter. Ferrell, who pleaded guilty in November to obstructing justice and complicity to gross abuse of a corpse, has agreed to testify at Cutts' trial.
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